The Girl Before(14)

The speaker is a scruffy, heavily built individual, an erratic growth of stubble covering his fleshy, jowly face. His hair, which is grayer than his stubble, is tied up in a ponytail. Despite the air-conditioning, he’s wearing shorts and flip-flops.

Monkford doesn’t seem perturbed by the interruption. “David, this is Jane Cavendish. She’s applied to live at One Folgate Street.”

So this must be David Thiel, the technology partner. His eyes, set so deep in his face I can barely make out their expression, turn to me incuriously, then swivel back to Monkford. “Really, the only solution is for the town to have its own satellite. We need to rethink everything—”

“A dedicated satellite? That’s an interesting notion,” Monkford says thoughtfully. He glances at me. “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse us, Jane.”

“Of course.” As I stand up David Thiel’s eyes drop down toward my bare legs. Monkford sees it too, and a frown crosses his face. I get the feeling he’s about to say something, but then he restrains himself.

“Thank you for seeing me,” I add politely.

“I’ll be in touch soon,” he says.





THEN: EMMA

And then, the very next day, there’s an email: Your application is approved.

I can’t believe it—not least because the email contains nothing else: no explanation about when we can move in, or what their bank details are, or what we’re supposed to do next. I call the agent, Mark. I’m getting to know him quite well now that I’m doing all this stuff for the application, and he isn’t actually as bad as I first thought.

He sounds genuinely pleased when I tell him. Since it’s empty, he says, you can move in this weekend if you want. There’s some paperwork to sign, and I’ll need to talk you through installing the app on your phones. That’s about it, really.

That’s about it, really. It’s just sinking in that we’ve done it. We’re going to live in one of the most amazing houses in London. Us. Me and Simon. Everything’s going to be different now.





3. You are involved in a traffic accident that you know is your fault. The other driver is confused and seems to think she caused the crash. Do you tell the police it was her fault or yours?

? Her fault

? Your fault





NOW: JANE

I am sitting in the spare, empty austerity of One Folgate Street, utterly content.

My gaze takes in the pristine blankness of the garden. I’ve discovered now why there aren’t any flowers. The garden is modeled on what the Internet tells me are karesansui, the formal meditative gardens of Buddhist temples. The shapes are symbolic: mountain, water, sky. It’s a garden for contemplating, not for growing things.

Edward Monkford spent a year in Japan, after his wife and son died. That’s what made me think to search for it.

Even the Internet is different here. Once Camilla had downloaded the app to my phone and laptop, and handed me the special bracelet that triggers One Folgate Street’s sensors, she connected to the Wi-Fi and typed in a password. Since then, whenever I turn on a device I’m met not by Google or Safari, but by a blank page and the word “Housekeeper.” There are just three tabs: “Home,” “Search,” and “Cloud.” “Home” brings up the current status for One Folgate Street’s lighting, heating, and so on. There are four different settings to choose from: Productive, Peaceful, Playful, and Purposeful. “Search” takes me to the Internet. “Cloud” is my backup and storage.

Every day, Housekeeper suggests what clothes I should wear, based on the weather outside, my appointments, and what’s currently at the laundry. If I’m eating in, it knows what’s in the fridge, how I might cook it, and how many calories it will add to my daily total. Meanwhile, the “Search” function filters out ads, pop-ups offering me a flatter belly, distressing news stories, Top Tens, gossip about minor celebrities, spam, and cookies. There are no bookmarks, no history, no saved data. I am wiped clean every time I close the screen. It’s strangely liberating.



Sometimes I pour myself a glass of wine and simply walk around, touching things, acclimating myself to the cool, expensive textures, adjusting the precise position of a chair or vase. Of course I was already familiar with that saying by Mies van der Rohe, Less is more, but I hadn’t appreciated before just how sensual less could be, how rich and voluptuous. The few pieces of furniture are design classics: Hans Wegner dining chairs in pale oak, white Nicolle stools, a sleek Lissoni sofa. And the house comes with a number of carefully curated but luxurious lesser props—thick white towels, bedsheets made of high-thread-count linen, handblown wineglasses with thermometer-thin stems. Every touch is a small surprise, a quiet appreciation of quality.

I feel like a character in a movie. Amid so much good taste the house somehow makes me walk more elegantly, stand in a more considered way, place myself within each vista for maximum effect. There’s no one to see me, of course, but One Folgate Street itself seems almost to become my audience, filling the sparse spaces with quiet, cinematic scores from Housekeeper’s automated playlist.

Your application is approved. That was all the email said. I’d been reading bad news into the fact the meeting was so short, but it seems Edward Monkford is inclined to brevity in all things. And I’m sure I wasn’t imagining that unspoken undercurrent, that tiny jolt you get when an attraction is reciprocated. Well, he knows where I am, I think. The waiting itself feels charged and sensual, a kind of silent foreplay.